Lots of news

We have lots of BIG changes happening around here.  It's all been in the works for a few months, now, but things are finally at a point where we are ready to share.

#1: Another superhero will be joining our crime fighting team in late November!  We already know, through genetic blood work, that it's a boy! (Cause there's no other reason that there would be "y" chromosomes in my blood stream. Isn't technology crazy?!) 

#2 We are moving.    

Here are all the nitty gritty details on both of those events:

Baby: Way back in December of 2011 we decided we were ready for #4.  Yes.  18 months ago.  We've never had any issues getting pregnant before, so we figured it would be easy peasy.  Wrong.  About 4 months after we started trying I started having pain in my lower left side.  Turns out I had an ovarian cyst the size of a hen's egg.  Lovely.  Cysts are normal, usually they are smaller, but they aren't anything to be overly concerned about most of the time.  Problem was, this cyst was making everything super "irregular".  I'll spare you the details, but it wasn't fun.  Finally around the beginning of August the pain and the cyst went away.  But still nothing was happening.  We tried three rounds of clomid and still no luck.  In February, after we had been trying for 14 months, we were referred to a fertility specialist.  Let me just say how ridiculous we felt filling out the "pregnancy history" at the fertility doctor.  There wasn't even enough room on the sheet for all five of my previous pregnancies. But at this point, with no previous history of fertility issues, we wanted to make sure there wasn't something seriously wrong with either of us.  We did a number of tests throughout the month of March.  One being an hsg test.  (click the link if you care to read what that it is)  Well, of course, the second we started paying money for all these tests, I got pregnant.  Isn't that how it works sometimes?  I actually think the hsg test may have helped things along.  There's a chance of increased in fertility after that test is done.  We found out the day after general conference that I was pregnant.  And actually, I was surprised.  I know it's silly to be surprised that you're pregnant when you've been trying for 15 months, but I was seriously starting to think that maybe we were done.  Or that we needed to adopt.  Or that we needed to wait a few years.  I had actually told Chris that we should just hold off until fall and enjoy the summer.   Of course we were beyond thrilled and we feel very, very blessed that we will be able to have another baby in our family.  I will be 14 weeks tomorrow and the baby is due November 30!

The list of things I learned from this experience is long.  Very, very long.  I know that 15 months isn't really a long time.  I know lots of people who have to wait longer.  I think the hard and confusing part for me was that I'd never had issues before and I always figured I never would.  I have been humbled.  Oh so humbled.  I have learned to trust more in the Lord and his plan.  I have learned to appreciate what I have right now, rather than always waiting for the next step.  I have learned to never, ever take a child in our family for granted.  I have learned that they are gifts from the Lord.  I have learned greater patience and empathy.  I am grateful for all I have learned.  I wish learning didn't have to be so painful, but I know that usually the greatest and most important lessons are learned when we have to rely completely on the Lord.

House:  Let me just start by saying the house market in TX is cr-a-zy right now.  Seriously.  Our current house has always been our 5-year house.  It's a great house.  We love it, but we have known from the start that we wanted more space as our family grew and our children got bigger!  We started casually looking at homes on the internet in January and February.  By April we were realizing that many homes were being sold in less than a week and if there was a house we truly liked we had better get on it the second it was posted.  One Monday evening Chris came home from work and told me that a house had come up with a big lot about 2 miles from our current home and that it had everything that we wanted.  We decided to set up and appointment for Tuesday evening.  By Tuesday evening the house had already gotten offers.  I ended up going to look at it by myself because they didn't want to do showings past 6 and Chris couldn't make it home.  It was perfect.  We put an offer on the house and waited.  By Wednesday the house had received more than 6 offers.  We didn't win the original bid, but we were the back-up offer.  A week later we got a call that the first offer had fallen through and that the house was ours if we wanted it.  Let me just say that making a decision like that in less than 24 hours is tough.  And the temple was closed for renovations.  But we didn't feel bad about it, so we went for it.  I haven't had any regrets.  

Within a week our own house was on the market.  We sold our house in 3 days.  The first sale fell through, unfortunately, so we put the house back up and sold it in 4 days.  Our option period ended on Wednesday, so we are officially under contract!  We closed on our new house last night!  We won't be moving until late June, however, because we are doing a lease-back.  

I'm super thankful that everything worked out with this crazy situation.  I'm very excited for our new house.  We will really miss our ward and school, but we will just be a few miles up the road.  I also have decided that selling a house during the first trimester of pregnancy is no fun at all.  This pregnancy has been more tolerable than my last 2, but I have still done my fair share of puking. And not being able to go home to rest is tough.  I took more than one nap in the front seat of my car while people were looking at our home, and I have a nice stack of plastic cups for any puke incidents that might arise while on the go.  It's all been worth it, though!

And there you have the long, long saga of what has been going on at the Wise home the last 2 months.